Optical devices can have both active and passive optical properties. For example, an optical amplifier has an active optical property such as the quantity of optical noise or amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) generated within the active region of the amplifier as well as predominantly passive optical properties such as transmission loss, transmission gain, polarization dependent loss, return loss, polarization mode dispersion, and chromatic dispersion. Typically, an optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) is used to characterize the active properties of an optical device while a separate optical network analyzer (ONA) is used to fully characterize the passive properties of the optical device. Using two different testing systems to characterize an optical device has drawbacks that include the expense of maintaining two different testing systems, increased setup time, additional measurement uncertainty from multiple optical connections to various test setups, and reliance on stable device and/or test system properties during test.
In view of the need to fully characterize the optical properties of an optical device, what is needed is an efficient technique for characterizing an optical device that includes characterizing both active and passive properties of the device.